


On the Edge

by magicasen



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Avengers Vol. 5 (2013), M/M, Masturbation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Time Runs Out (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 15:12:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2586056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicasen/pseuds/magicasen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some monsters, you can't take out.</p><p>(Post-Avengers #37)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Edge

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much to [Sineala](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala) for taking a look over this!

_If you ask me, sounds like both of you got in bed with the wrong people._

Damn Carol. Damn Cho, damn Terrax, damn Illuminati and Reed and Sta –

Steve stripped himself with ruthless efficiency, eyes trained on the bed. Forget it. Sleep, now. Long day tomorrow. Maybe the past eight months had been the longest day of his life, if only because there was nothing left for him afterward. Not without the Avengers.

Damn, damn, goddamn Sta –

Sue had agreed to have another talk with Cho tomorrow. Steve's fingers twitched. He couldn't interrogate effectively anymore; it wasn't so much an old man thing than it was a  _Captain America_ old man thing, never mind how he would remind them that there was a perfectly good, upstanding Captain America running around that was not him. People tended to be more disbelieving or, god help them, worried than intimidated when Steve was in the room. Steve whipped off his shoulder strap and it made a loud, sharp crack. Sue had done a fine job the last time, effective show of force, enough to even rattle a powered being. Hard to do that, nowadays.

He slipped into the bed, the cool sheets offering no solace from the discord roaring across his thoughts. The empty bed had been a unerring constant throughout the past eight months, as well. Sharon was – she'd been off the map for weeks now, and Steve had put her there.  _Nothing comes back but the mission objective,_ he had told her.  _He wants to go off the radar? Let him try – he's never been good at keeping a low profile._ She had tilted her head with a wry expression.  _So, bring back Stark and don't bother showing my face otherwise._ Her expression was unnervingly blank as Steve stumbled over the words he was supposed to return.  _It's okay,_ and Sharon's smile had actually shown teeth, then,  _that's how I best operate, anyway._

Even before that, there had been no time after her and Ian's return from Dimension Z. Eight months of silence, with nary a mention of engagements and proposals that had been made over a decade ago between them.

Not that it really mattered. Sharon had proposed to Captain America, not an Avengers and SHIELD liaison who...well. No one had looked at him like... _that_ ever since he'd gained this body. 

At least no one other than –

Steve turned on his side and bit his lip in irritation, resisting the urge to curse. The strain of the cloth of his boxers against him wasn't as prominent a distraction now, but now his half-hardened cock rested against his thigh, and he couldn't help but move his leg, craving the friction. Ridiculous, that even now, even like this, the human need for companionship betrayed him. He brought a hand down and ground his palm against the bulge, eyes fluttering shut at the simple, powerful sensation it coaxed from his body.

He shifted, too far into the act to pull back now. Long day tomorrow, it would go faster with a fantasy, ramp up the imaginary stakes. But Sharon was ruled out, and that left –

Screw it all, he didn't need one, managed plenty of supposedly impossible feats with next to no sleep. One day with long hours was nothing more than a drop in the bucket at this point. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and focused on pressing harder, the touch safer, somehow, through the bluntness his underwear's cloth provided. He turned his face into his pillow, could feel the warmth of his own breath as he panted against the bed.

Carol's words from before drifted through his mind, and something curled in the pit of Steve's gut. Expression of speech, Carol could be as vulgar as the best of them – Air Force, Army, never mattered in this regard – but now when Steve thought it over, he could see it – leaning against that doorframe, hand on her hip, the posture of a cocky bastard, along the dryness of her tone with her eyes trained straight on Steve.

She knew. Steve didn't know how, but she  _knew,_ and that was almost enough to kill any desire Steve had to get himself off. It almost hurt, the pressure with which he pressed his hand against himself, trying to force the sinking feeling out of his stomach. Damn it, that man couldn't take this away from him too, not like he did everything else – 

“ _We never did see eye-to-eye, did we, Cap?”_

“ _I'm not Cap anymore.”_

“ _Don't know what it is about you, Steve, but even as an old, wrinkly prune, I see something in you. Maybe it's cause you've always been your ideal self,” he jabbed at Steve's chest,”and that's there's Cap. I just want to give what you've always wanted back to you. Now, tell me how that's so wrong?”_

Steve shoved his boxers down to his thighs, not enough willpower to stop and reach down to tug them off and untrap his legs. He hissed as he finally palmed himself, skin-on-skin, and the empty room echoed the haunting sound back to him. He gnawed at his lower lip, the heat of unbearable anger clenched in his jaw finally losing out here, not quite enough to override the rest of the warmth overwhelming his body.

_Stark was eye-to-eye to him now._

“ _Just let yourself go, Steve, you've always been so uptight. You'll regret being like this, when you find out control's overrated when your worst fears come true anyway. What's the point? Alcohol's tasted as good now as it ever did before.” His lips turned up, then taunting him, his fingers tapping against the phone, Extremis app loaded up and ready. Steve couldn't tell what response his body was telling him, his fists clenching and his breath speeding up._

_Whatever it was with Tony closing in on Steve's personal space, eyes flickering down to his mouth, their breaths intermingling, and every instinct Steve still had telling him to get out, call in backup, call up the_ _ real Cap, but not without landing a hard one right on Stark's face beforehand –  _

_It wasn't a surprise when Stark shot forward, capturing Steve's lips in a kiss. And_ _**then** _ _ Steve finally had the sense to jump to instinct, but when it came to this that meant pushing back into the kiss, giving as good as he got –  _

Steve let go of himself like he had been shocked. His cock throbbed in response. He had a single thought of doing something horrible to himself there, then, punishing every stupid, stupid instinct and bodily response. Instead he turned his hand around, and dragged his knuckles across himself, feeling every wrinkle on his tough fingers catch on the sensitive skin and shooting flashes of sensation through him. This was – he should get out, now, take a cold shower to cleanse off whatever the hell sort of sin this was, but he couldn't stop reminding himself that of course, this man wasn't the real – only a deranged Stark would be attracted to Steve in the first place, and of course it only happened here, now when Steve had the bad luck of being like – this. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Their first kiss should have been –

_Steve shoved Tony away but only after – Tony let himself be pushed back, but there was a glint of triumph in his eyes regardless. And that meant Tony knew, he'd always known, then, about Steve and – what happened to Tony tampered only with personality, couldn't give him knowledge he didn't already have. This was all just to prove a hypothesis, and Steve had just provided an irrefutable result. His blood ran cold._

Their first kiss should have been something that had never happened. A soft whimper, muffled into the pillow, and the movement of Steve's hand turned desperate. It wasn't enough though, even the fastest, harshest movements he could push this body through too slow and laggard. He couldn't do this. The memory that looped again and again, the scratch of a beard against him and soft, chapped lips against his, was too awful and dangerous, and Steve couldn't even tell anymore if it was out of pain or shame.

But what was safe anymore? Good ol' Shellhead, back when he had no idea the billionaire and armored Avenger were one and the same? Back in the mansion, their Avengers, or as their as you could get with a roster that worked as well as a revolving door? Back when that man couldn't have cut him this deeply, and he was wrong, utterly wrong about Steve regretting keeping in control. Steve regretted not having enough.

His blood was pounding. His hand pumped faster, flicked a nail over the head and sent a shock of pleasure-pain through his limbs. Right, that was – this couldn't be slow and leisurely, this sort of wretched – Steve tugged roughly in time with his motions. It didn't even feel very good, the feelings all too much, but now Steve could focus on the physical sensations and not the images that flashed unbidden through his mind.

Tony's eyes were bright, fingers flying through the air, touching points against the screen with the Avengers World. Steve watching through Tony – Iron Man's – camera view, seeing the same world Tony saw as his friend's teasing voice filtered through the comm channels. Tony shrugged, affecting nonchalance, at one of Steve's jokes, but his lips were quirking upwards, regardless.

Steve came without a sound, mouth brazenly ajar. The waves throbbed throughout his body, wiped his mind completely blank for a blessed few seconds.

The first thought to register who knows how much later was that at least these sensations were the same as they had ever been. It took another long moment for Steve to turn, shifting onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling, lifting up the traitorous hand from his softening cock and resting its back on his forehead.Until he growled, clenched it into a fist and dug his knuckles into himself hard.

_You could always take the monster out,_ Clint had told him what felt like a lifetime ago. Steve closed his eyes, biting his lip so hard his body trembled, and wondered, not for the last time, how to take out this monster within himself. 


End file.
